


Rider Of The White Horse - 5 Times Mayhem Turned White And One Time She Just Needed A Bath

by LananiA3O



Category: Darksiders (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Animal Harm, Five Times Plus One, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I am not a total monster, I promise I'm not gonna kill any horses in this fic, but no animal deaths, chapter 1 tw: contagious diseases
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:41:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23813215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LananiA3O/pseuds/LananiA3O
Summary: They call him the Rider of the White Horse, yet Strife's mare Mayhem has been grey since the time he got her. That is, until the world decided to be a dark and terrible place again. Six times.
Relationships: Strife & Mayhem
Comments: 6
Kudos: 36





	1. The Rains of Arocon

**Author's Note:**

> I have been salty about Mayhem being... well... grey, rather than white, ever since I saw her design for Genesis, so here we are--five times Mayhem turned white and one time she just needed a bath. This fic is gonna get dark in places, but I can't stress this enough: I am NOT going to kill Mayhem.

It began, like so many of his woes, with Death being an obnoxious, arrogant, selfish jerk. For the first time in eight-hundred years they had received a task that even remotely resembled interesting... and all Death had to say to him after the Council sent them off— _together_ , Strife might add—was “go home, Strife”.

“Home is where your annoying siblings are,” Strife shouted after him as he disappeared in a flash of light, leaving behind a scorched mark where the portal catalyst had been. They bonded to whoever used them first, according to the Council, which is why they had given them two. Too bad Death had tossed Strife’s right off the walkway and into the fiery pits of the Council’s realm as soon as they had finished their briefing.

“I’m gonna murder this son of a bitch,” Strife muttered under his breath as he stomped off towards the edges of the inner sanctum. He knew the name of the world they were supposed to go to, and though the Council had told them NOT to take their horses, ignoring the fine print offered with each contract had become an exciting habit of his. He _lived_ for how they would rage about it in childish indignation when he returned.

Strife stepped over the runes that barred any unsanctioned entry, called out once, and watched Mayhem appear in all her armored, shadow-trailing glory before he had so much as finished her name.

“Hey girl!” Strife grabbed the reins with one hand and gave her a quick pat with the other. “Yeah, we’ve got a job!” The excited whinny that responded was an echo of his own enthusiasm. Still, he had no doubt Mayhem was genuinely glad to be on the clock as well. “And the Council said I shouldn’t take you with me.”

If anyone had told Strife that horses can emote, back in his days with the nephilim horde, he would have called them fools. Now, the indignation in Mayhem’s posture as she threw back her head, stomped her hooves, and shook her body was all but palpable. “I know, I know. Me too, girl. So how about we ignore the fire triplets and get out of here? I’ll even let you lead.”

And just like that, indignation turned to excitement. Strife laughed as he swung himself into the saddle, barely holding on to the reins for all the excited prancing. “Take us to Arocon and find my jerk of a brother, girl!”

Mayhem whinnied once more in joy, then blazed off into the nothingness, the void between worlds. It still felt strange for Strife, entering this hollow where any step off the invisible path could lead to being hopelessly lost in space and time forever, but to Mayhem, this was just another day like all the other days before. She was a phantom horse and phantom horses took to the nothingness as fish took to water. Where was Arocon? He did not know, but surely Mayhem did. If she didn’t, she would have let him know with a glare that all but screamed ‘what am I—a map?’ Instead, she charged into the vast expanse of emptiness without a hint of fear.

Mayhem would take him there, without a shadow of a doubt.

And take him there she did. They arrived to the ring of steel and the smell of blood, and his guns were out of his holsters long before the haze of the void fully dissolved. A second later the lenses of his visor adjusted to the intensity and color of the miserable spit of light that grazed this world. He spotted Death almost instantly, cutting his path through what looked very much like a forest of semi-sentient, ugly-ass trees with rotting leaves. Strife braced for the impact as Mayhem disappeared into the ground beneath him and hit the floor running.

The leaves on the tree things were pale as bones and smelling just as bad. So was the grass beneath his feet and the rain that fell. Strife drew Mercy and Redemption and planted perfect head—well—crown-shots into the trees approaching Death from behind. “Damn. This place smells like a graveyard! You could have told me we were visiting your place, bro!” At last the trees seemed to notice him. He swapped Mercy and Redemption out for Silence and Shade and started cutting. The roots and vines tried to grasp for his ankles, but he hadn’t learned proper footwork from two of his older sisters just to lose to a bunch of sentient fauna. “I would have brought flowers!”

Death didn’t answer, but that was hardly new or surprising. A short twitch of his jaw was the only hint of annoyance Strife got from him, but that was enough for now. There was work to do.

“Look, I’m sorry, guys...” What _were_ those things anyway? Strife tried to get a better look as he cut down another tangled mess of gnarly wood. “... but both Death and I... we’re kind of terrible at gardening.” There were stones with runes stuck in between their vines, but he didn’t have the time to look more closely. They would have to save that for the autopsy. “There’s one thing I know about plants though!”

Strife vaulted over a particularly aggressive specimen that tried to charge him and dashed for the closest spot of empty field that he could find. Shade and Silence disappeared back into his armory with the sharp slicing of freshly cut metal and made room for Mercy and a handful of bullets that glowed like the angry red sun over Blackstone Keep. Mercy vibrated in his hand as he loaded the new ammo and aimed. “They do burn real good!”

He had once been told that the only thing limiting Mercy’s rate of fire was how quickly its owner could pull the trigger. Too bad for these pitiful piles of bark that that owner just happened to be him. The shots of lava, though small and seemingly insignificant, stuck to the gnarly skin of his foes like tar and set them ablaze within seconds.

And just like that every tree within sight wanted to hug him. The lethal, bone-crushing kind of hug. He had never felt so loved.

Strife laughed and pulled the trigger again. And again and again and again and again.

*

“Which part of ‘go home’ did you not understand?”

“Which part of ‘you _two_ will depart immediately’ did _you_ not understand?” Strife parroted back at Death. What was his problem, anyway? The mission had been completed successfully. Even the Council had said so. “I hate to break this to you, bro, but you’re not the sole arbiter of selective hearing.”

“I am not the one who lied to the _Council_.”

“Not this time, anyway.” Strife snorted. “Creator help your fragile ego if any of us ever decide to pick up necromancy.”

He saw the swing with the scythe coming and ducked with effortless grace.

Right into a gut punch.

Strife groaned as the shock traveled through and past his armor straight into that inconvenient cluster of nerves below his chest. Someone with arms that thin shouldn’t be able to hit _that_ hard.

“Pray tell, Strife,” Death glared at him as he shook off the pain and slowly regained his footing. “Which one of the two of us is almost impervious to disease?”

“The same one who’s impervious to cooperative communication.” Strife stepped over the rune barrier of the Council’s realm once more and called Mayhem back to his side. She appeared next to him almost silently, softly, and hung her head as he got in the saddle. It seemed even his horse was mad at Death’s stubbornness. “I’m not some delicate flower, Death, but if you are going to shut out War, Fury and me every time we are supposed to work _with_ you for fear that one of us may get a bruise or a cough, perhaps at least have the guts to say so.”

Strife turned Mayhem around and patted her neck. “Let’s go home, girl.”

*

He did end up with a cough. Strife rolled his eyes at the sounds that escaped his aching throat. “We’re not doing that, lungs! Cut it out already!”

And who needed lungs anyway? Not a nephilim, that was for sure. Nothing but trouble. Strife pulled his scarf closer around his neck and stepped out off the abandoned outpost he now called home. The fresh snow that had fallen while he had been on his mission crunched under his boots. He liked that sound. He liked how the snow coated everything in roughly the same color. Most people would call this hell. He called it a world free of distractions and full of fun challenges. In between his eyes and Mayhem’s instincts, running through the forests of this world in winter was a great test of reflexes and quick thinking.

“Okay, girl, let’s dash!”

In front of him, the courtyard lay silent as a grave. Strife raised an eyebrow. “What’s up, girl? I know you don’t mind the cold.” His only answer was the wind, howling through broken windows. Deep in the pit of his stomach, the first sour tingle of suspicion settled like a parasite and Strife shuddered. He remembered this feeling. He remembered it from Lucernox. He remembered it from Kothysos. He remembered it from Eden.

“Mayhem, this ain’t funny. Come out! Now!”

He heard her before her saw her, pained neighing barely breaking through the ground as she dragged herself out of the dirt by her hooves. It clung to her mane and tail in clumps of clay. The armor, previously light as a feather, seemed to weigh on her like lead, and even before he noticed how thin and pale the trail of smoke after her hooves had grown, Strife could feel how pale she felt. How thin. How _weak_.

“Mayhem!” The poor horse collapsed just a few feet shy of the fountain, rolling in the snow like a sad, wounded deer. “Fuck!”

Strife all but leaped across the yard and knelt down next to her, brushing over the mare’s ears as she pushed her head into his lap. She was cold as ice.

“Fuck, Mayhem, what’s happened to you?!” A violent cough shook him, but he wasn’t deterred. He ripped off the armor that covered her face first and froze at what he saw.

Fury had often used to poke fun at how he was referred to as the rider of the _white_ horse, given that there was nothing white about Mayhem. Her fur had turned an ashen grey the moment he had named her. Her mane was a ruddy brown. Hell, her armor glinted more brightly then the rest of her on most days, but not now.

Now, his girl tried to put the snow to shame. The gold of her eyes had watered down to a pale, sickly yellow. And she was weak. Strife could have felt it in his own bones, even if he hadn’t seen her collapse. She was so very weak.

“What happened to you, girl?” Since when did phantom horses get sick? How? Why? When—

_“For this mission, you will not ride.”_

The words of the Council welled up in his brain like a storm surge, drowning out whatever else he might have been thinking about. They had known. That’s why they had given Death two portal stones. So they could go to Arocon without their horses.

“I am so sorry, Mayhem...” He truly was. Strife brushed her mane as the words clawed their way out of his sore throat. “I did not know. If I had known that’s why they had given us the portal stones...” Had Death known? Suddenly, sorrow turned to rage. Had he? Had he been aware? He had been pointing out his resilience to disease after they had returned. “If he knew, I’m gonna murder the son of a bitch!”

Mayhem whinnied softly. It was a downright pathetic sound, but he couldn’t have been mad at her even if he had tried. Not like this. “I’m gonna get you help, I promise!”

_Help from where? Death? You really think you can show up to his place and be like ‘hey, bro, you were right and I was an ass and my horse is dying, please help’? Rider of the white horse... rider of the dead horse, more like!_

And there was his brain again, being an unhelpful lump of grey matter once more. _Thanks for that, brain_.

Still, he had to do something. He had to get help. Preferably from someone who knew a thing or two about phantom horses—“Oh.”

Of course. The answer was obvious. He just had to act quickly.

His first stop was the supply room in the basement. He gathered up as many of the candle crystals as he could and grabbed one of the broken spears on his way out. He planted it in the ground just between his horse and the fountain, then scaled the walls to rip off one of the tattered banners. In between the lowest balcony and the spear, it made a decent make-shift tarp and came as close to providing shelter to Mayhem as it could. After all, phantom horses could only appear under the open sky, so proper stables were out.

Still Mayhem snorted in protest.

“I know, I know, you’re feeling trapped. Trust me, it beats getting buried under eight feet of snow.”

He knew what that felt like. He remembered Kothysos. He wouldn’t wish that on his enemies, much less his own horse.

Next was the armor. Strife took it off of her one by one, grimacing as each plate revealed only more unusually white fur. Still, the armor was metal. It was only gonna cool her down. What she needed was warmth. Strife took off his scarf, laid half of it over her body and retrieved the crystals he had dropped to set up the pole.

“Incalida...” It was one of the very few pieces of angelic magic he had ever learned, pathetically useless in combat, but it came in handy in moments just like these and Strife had never been one to waste supplies lying in his way. The crystals’ faintest glow strengthened with each syllable, until they shone with the warm orange of a setting sun. They felt almost too hot in his hand, but chances were that meant they were just right. He spaced them out carefully on the scarf, then folded the unused half back over Mayhem’s body. “There, girl. This should keep you warm until I’m back.”

Mayhem kicked and neighed weakly as if to say ‘what do you mean ‘back’?’, but he hardly had time to explain. Strife got up, returned to the supply room and opened up the book next to the angelic reflecting pool. He had seen the names of many familiar and unfamiliar worlds in there, but right now he only needed one.

The relief that he felt when he found what he had been looking for was laughably strong. Strife set the runes and stepped through the portal.

*

It was spring on the other side, though that was not surprising. It was _always_ spring in the Far Fields.

It was also not surprising that he had a whip around his neck the moment he arrived.

“Hey, Horsemaster! How’s—“

“Stay back!” The whip loosened in an instant. Strife watched in confusion as the Horsemaster dropped it like a sack of hot coals and pulled a gun on him instead. A gun. Of all things. He would have laughed if this hadn’t sent every danger sense of his tingling.

“Return to Arocon right now and take that plague back with you, before you hurt your horse or mine!”

 _So it really was Arocon_. Strife swallowed the guilt that climbed out of his gut. “It’s a little too late for that. Mayhem is in bad shape. I need help. Please.”

 _Please_. It was not a word that came easy to him. It was not a word that came easy to any nephilim, but right now it was all he had. It was either the Horsemaster or Death. The former knew more about phantom horses. And he might even let him live this down. In a million years or so.

“I went to Arocon, yes. I would have gone without Mayhem had my idiot of a brother not taken my alternative means of transportation, and if I could turn back time and _not_ send her to that place, I would. But I can’t. Tell me what I _can_ do instead.”

“You can do nothing.” He hadn’t meant it as a cruelty, at least Strife had heard no malice in his voice, but the words stung like a poisoned blade nonetheless. “The rains of Arocon are poisonous to almost every creature in the universe. To those born outside the void between worlds they cause a sickness of the lungs.”

 _Yep, can confirm_. Strife bit back the comment just in time.

“But to those born inside the void,” the Horsemaster continued, “to phantom horses and void wraiths and their like, it acts as a parasite. It leeches every shred of warmth from them until they become one with the cold of the void. Until they fade out of existence. _You_ will likely recover. _Mayhem_ likely will not.”

“Likely?” He clung to the word like a human toddler to its mother’s skirt. “Define likely? What can I _do_?”

“You can keep her warm.” The Horsemaster shrugged. “At least that should ease her suffering. But only one in ten thousand phantom horses ever recovers from the rains of Arocon.”

Strife cringed. It was the tone of the Horsemaster’s voice more than his choice of words that gave him the impression that those numbers were not pulled from thin air.

“Begone now, rider. You doomed one of these magnificent creatures. You will not doom the herds of the Far Fields.”

He felt the suction of the portal just before his feet lifted off the ground. He tumbled, he fell. He hit the snow with a loud, wet crunch, and felt the cold air sting in his lungs. Not far from him, Mayhem whimpered in pain.

“Fuck!” He wanted to murder something. Death, the Council, that entire stupid fucking planet and its goddamn rain. “God-fucking-damn it!”

He pounded the ground hard enough to bury his fist a foot into the earth. Then the coughing and hacking started. Strife waited until it was done and looked at his horse once more.

 _One in ten thousand_.

“You are not going to die, girl.” He knew he didn’t sound convinced and as far as phantom horses went, that was about the worst he could have been. “You are NOT! You hear me? I’m not gonna let you die!”

He had gotten Mayhem into this mess. He was going to get her out. He had to.

Strife took as deep a breath as his infected lungs allowed, picked himself up off the floor and went to retrieve a pail of clear water. He dumped one of the candle crystals into it to heat it up, then all but shoved Mayhem’s mouth into it.

“Drink, girl.” She tried to kick him, but it was truly a pathetic motion. “I don’t care. You gotta stay warm. Drink!”

Part of him was tempted to get Ruin in here. He was a living furnace. Surely he could keep his sister warm.

“Just as surely as we could get him sick, too.” And oh god did he not want to face War over this. “Imma have to make sure my sibs don’t come by any time soon.”

Strife laughed. That, of all things, was probably his easiest task for the foreseeable future. It was not like any of them came to visit him for fun anyway. Which meant he only had to make sure they did not visit him for work. Which meant he had to inform the Council.

“Oh this damn day just keeps getting better and better...”

Strife sighed. Mayhem dug her head out of the pail and nudged him softly. The pail was empty and for the first time since she had collapsed in the snow, Strife felt the teeniest, tiniest slither of hope. “It’s okay, girl. We’ll both make it through this.”

A chill blew through the crude shelter and Strife reached for his scarf instinctively, only to be met with thin air and his armor. _Right. Scarf. Horse. Cover._ He got up slowly and cleared his throat. “Imma go get us some more of them crystals.”

*

There were many things other creatures often misunderstood about nephilim. One of those was the need for food and sleep. Just as angels and demons needed sustenance and rest, so did their cursed, unnatural spawn. Although by this point, Strife truly wished the rumors about them not needing any such trifles were true. Nibbling on the only not-rotten piece of food he had been able to scavenge from his pantry and fighting off fatigue for the sixth time in forty days really made him wish all the rumors were true.

Forty days.

Forty days of sitting by his horse’s side, fearing for her life. Forty days of heating up crystals, heating up water, changing wet covers, fixing the banner-tarp, and trying to get some food into his very sick, very grouchy mare, as well as his own very sick, very grouchy self. Surely this was hell.

“We are never telling Death about this,” Strife muttered as he changed her covers once more. “Never. He’s not gonna let us live this down ever. And no telling Despair either!” It was hard to say what Mayhem was trying to tell him, what with all her thoughts and sounds having been so weak since that cursed mission, but he was fairly sure she agreed.

He was just about to put on a fresh, warm cover when he noticed a spot of grey on her right hind leg. For the first time in forty days, Strife felt a smile on his lips. “Well, damn, girl! You gettin’ some color back on your coat!”

He truly wanted to jump for joy. Probably would have if it wasn’t for the damn cough and the fact that the snowfall had gotten even worse, making it a hazardous idea at best.

The scrolls had said something about a return of color being the first sign of improvement in the horses. Granted, these were scrolls he had bought off _Vulgrim_ , so a grain of salt was definitely recommended, but they had been written by angels, and that was slightly more comforting. Slightly. It didn’t help that his grasp of the angelic language was still relatively pathetic—another way in which Lilith had screwed her ‘children’ over—but at least this much he had been able to make out from the scrolls.

Recovery from the rains of Arocon, if it happened at all, happened in three phases—a partial return of health after thirty to fifty days, a full return after the same time again, and lack of contagion after yet another fifty days.

“See, we’re already one third of the way,” Strife assured his mare as he finished setting up the covers. “Just another... oh.... eighty to hundred days.” Mayhem snorted in frustration. “Yes, I know. ‘Just’.”

Strife sat down next to her once more and fed her the last of his angelic rations. “I swear, once this is over, we’re going somewhere nice and warm. No mission. No duties. Just for fun.”

_Just a rider and his... grey... horse._


	2. Of Another Color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having been sent on a mission that requires infiltrating an angelic fortress with minimum bloodshed, Strife decides to get creative with his powers.

„You do not seem to understand who we are. _What_ we are...”

“Oh I think I understand just fine, birdie.” Strife grinned underneath the visor, knowing full well that it would show in his voice, even if not on his face. “I also think you’re too scared of what your precious superiors in the White City are going to do to you if they find out you let someone with even a drop of demonic blood into this ‘jewel of Heaven’.”

Angels really could be ridiculous like that. Most of the time, Strife actually found it amusing, how they so fervently professed their love for the balance and their obedience towards the Council... but as soon as that obedience demanded they waste a single second on someone who was of demonic blood, it was as if they had never even heard of the prickly fire bastards.

Today was not most of the time. Today he had a job to do and—hey—he wasn’t going to blame them for not simply giving up an artifact as powerful as a Chronomancer’s time well, but the Council insisted and so here he was. On a desert planet near the edges of Hell’s domain. With a bunch of very territorial angels. Clearly the best setup for a mission that was supposed to be handled ‘with a minimum of bloodshed’.

“His Radiance is preparing a message and an offer for your masters as we speak,” the captain of the angelic guard of Midbar eventually growled back at him. His phantom steed stomped in support. Both of them radiated the sheer air of annoyance that came with someone who had been promoted into an ungrateful job far away from home not too long ago. “He will have it delivered to them before the suns set on this realm tomorrow. You will find that there’ll be no more need for your presence here after that. The artifact is safe in his hands.”

Strife raised an eyebrow. _So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?_ He glanced at the rest of the guard, spears drawn and guns pointed, and shook his head. “Right. I get it. You’re hopeless. I’ll be going then. I’m sure there’s more than one way into this damn fortress.”

With one last, indignant scoff, the rider of the... well... almost white horse, turned and descended down the winding path he had come. Of course the angels had erected their outpost on a mountain that towered over the rest of this world. Of course they had then separated its top from the base and levitated it with their magic. Was there a word for “lofty” in standard angelic? He was about ninety-eight percent sure that there wasn’t, but then again he had only just recently learned—to this utter dismay—that angels actually had three languages. The only silver lining to that revelation had been that Death, who seemed to absorb languages like a sponge did water, had not been there to question why he was suddenly looking so aghast. And, boy, the last thing he needed was another lecture of disappointment from that—

It was Mayhem popping out of the ground next to him that made his mind snap back to reality sharp as a whiplash. _Focus, Strife._ The angels wanted him gone not _by_ tomorrow but _until_ tomorrow.

_They are planning to move the time well._

Well, at least his attention was as easy to get as it was to lose. “If they take it to the White City, there’s gonna be a bloodbath. If they take it somewhere else, we’ll be looking for... what was that phrase humans came up with just a few years ago? A needle in a haystack?”

Mayhem dug in her hooves so abruptly in front of him, he nearly walked right into her. Her ruddy brown mane suddenly had that strangely red glimmer that never signaled good things and Strife bristled. Great. Now his horse was pissed at him too. It took him a moment to realize why.

 _Oh. Right. Travel to Earth is forbidden_. _And the Council has not officially sent us back there since... the culling._ _And we’re still within earshot of the universes worst micromanagers._ _Oops_. “Come on, Mayhem...” Strife knew that nothing he could say would be convincing enough to make her back off, but when had that ever stopped him? “I know you enjoyed your time there, too.”

The mare huffed in indignation and what he could only describe as resentful resignation as he swung himself into the saddle and galloped down the mountain into the endless sand. He rode west, away from the angels’ base, towards the rising moon that was barely visible on the horizon. He had seen an oasis about four miles west of here, and while he wasn’t entirely sure what he would find there, he did know that he had spotted angels heading to and from the little green refuge in this world of red sands, as well as a complex of buildings that did not look angelic in design. From what the Council had told him, Midbar was an outpost of the angels, but not one of their native worlds. Most likely, the buildings belonged to whoever had lived here first, so at the very least he should be able to get a hint on how to deal with the atrocious, insufferably pressing heat of this place. In between his armor and his scarf, Strife was fairly certain the only creature who was suffering more than him right now was his poor horse, covered in armor from head to toe, slowly being cooked alive. How nice for the angelic champion that his steed had turned out perfect pearly, reflect-the-sun white.

“What does an angel even need a phantom horse for?” Strife was not expecting an answer, but sometimes thinking out loud helped isolate one of the thousand thoughts in his head more clearly. “They can fly anywhere. Why go through the trouble? If he wanted a status symbol he could just have gotten a griffin.”

Mayhem’s response was a whinny that bordered on a whine. In fact, Strife could all but hear her say “Yes, why not a giant animal covered in fur _and_ feathers _and_ armor on top—certainly that would be a fantastic choice for desert duty!” in an actual voice. In his head, it sounded like Fury, which was still a step up from the last time _Death_ had let him have a piece of his mind.

_‘Sometimes, Strife, I wonder if Lilith actually forgot to put a brain in your skull.’_

Strife gave one last derisive frown, before spurring Mayhem on to gallop towards the oasis as fast as possible. He did have a brain. And he was going to use it to get out of here with few enough kills to count them on one hand.

***

He arrived just as the first of the planet’s three suns sunk completely beneath the horizon, and was immediately greeted in the usual way for any horseman—distrustful, weary, and occasionally panicked stares from the locals, and an immediate assembly of the guards. _All of them angels_ , Strife noted in quiet discomfort. Granted, the willowy natives of this world did not seem much for battle, but then again looks could be deceiving. Strife, of all people, knew that all too well.

He headed for what he supposed passed for an inn on this word. It was the second-largest building in this little spot of green surrounded by endless sand, dome-shaped like all the others and painted with red clay markings in a language he did not speak and likely never would. He had barely sent Mayhem back into the ether when the doors opened, releasing a swarm of the inn’s patrons, who could not seem to get away from him fast enough, like an ant nest bleeding workers after dumping boiling water down its corridors. Strife frowned. He supposed he should have gotten used to that by now—how almost a century of rampaging across the universe with a horde of blood-mad conquerors and being appointed an official, lethal enforcer of the world’s spoil sportiest control freaks had certainly not done anything to endear him to the rest of the universe. And yet, he felt a certain... melancholy at the thought of this being yet another planet where the only thing he could expect from the locals was either hatred or fear. Or both.

Strife sighed, walked into the inn, found himself a seat in the corner furthest from the exit and waived one of the waiters over. To his surprise, he managed to order whatever passed for wine on this world without a single sneer or sign of displeasure from the waiter. Now _that_ was a first. Eventually, another waiter arrived and handed him his drink, but that one too seemed surprisingly calm. Had they just resigned themselves to the fact that, unlike their customers, they could not just run away from this situation? If that was the case, he hoped they were at least paid enough for this job.

“Thank you.”

The words slipped out almost automatically, one of those last little habits from his very early days, from before his first conquest that had begun his path as a killer, and it took him a moment to realize that it had stopped the waiter in his tracks. He had been turning to leave. Now he was standing there, three eyes blinking in confusion and those slim, long fingers with the elaborately painted nails scratching up and down the tray in what Strife assumed was a mixture of nerves and confusion.

“I know...” The best way Strife had ever learned to deal with scorching disappointment, was to lean right into it. “Not what you expected from a horseman.”

“Not what I expected from anyone with angelic blood in their veins,” the waiter replied with a sneer. “They don’t usually thank us for what they take from us.”

“You want them gone...” Now that had stirred Strife’s interest. It was a natural nephilim instinct, this attraction to conflict, like a shark smelling blood in the water from a mile away. Unfortunately, there was this teeny tiny bit of a catch of the Council’s second instruction for his mission here. ‘Minimum bloodshed.’ Strife sighed. “I am terribly sorry, but I’m afraid I can’t just ride up there and slaughter them all. Sadly.” The waiter looked at him in subdued disappointment. “But if I can complete my mission and bring back proof to the Charred Council that they misused the artifacts of this world, they might not be allowed to remain here.”

The waiter nodded and left. Strife leaned back in his chair, ignoring his mug of wine with a deliberate intensity that bordered on spite, and instead taking in the room. It took him until just about before the waiter returned to realize what was wrong with the picture in front of him.

There were no more women in the inn. As far as Strife could see, this species was binary, just like the angels, and though this place seemed to have lost most of its patrons in general the moment he arrived, thinking back on it now, he did recall that most of them had been female. He could see where this was going. More importantly, Strife could see where he was going to _make_ it go.

“We might have a way to get you into the fortress,” the waiter whispered to him in such hushed tones, even Strife barely heard him, and that was an achievement. His senses were as sharp as his brother’s scythes. “Once every ten days they allow us into the fort to deliver provisions—“

“I’m gonna stop you right there,” Strife cut in, pushed up his visor, and finally downed his wine. It was pretty shitty wine as far as he could tell, but then again he was on a desert planet. Better not expect too much. “I was told to pull this off with minimum bloodshed and I can already see that plan of yours getting all of ya’ll involved in it killed, so I’m gonna do this my way instead. All I need from you are answers to two questions.”

The waiter swayed left and right slightly, perhaps his species’ way of expressing uncertainty and hesitation. Unless frowning meant something else to these people, Strife could also hazard a guess that he felt offended at having his help rejected so harshly. Strife could not have cared less.

“Question one: your main problem is the captain, right?”

It was the subtle shiver that went through the man in front of him that told Strife everything he needed to know. He had hit a nerve. Good. “This place emptied in a flash at the sound of hooves and yet you don’t seem particularly intimidated serving a horseman. You weren’t expecting me. You were expecting him. Fucking bastard in his shining armor with his pearly horse.” Strife waited for a minute, then took the lack of a reply as confirmation. “Question two: does he come here every night?”

“Almost. Usually...” The waiter grudgingly admitted. “He hasn’t been here in three nights.”

Which meant there was a good chance he was coming back this night. Strife sighed, summoned up twice the gilt he owed from the bottom of the vault in his gauntlet, and exchanged it for the right to loiter as long as he liked. Not that they _could_ have kicked him out by force, but... well... he was trying to get through this with only minimum bloodshed, after all. If all went well, only two birds would be dead by sunrise.

Of course, all going well hinged on him dragging as many details as he could from the disordered depths of his mind. It was like a genuine maze full of clutter in there. Like searching for a needle in a haystack. _Bless humans and their sayings. Bless all their little hearts_.

Strife leaned back and tried to focus as he took a closer look at the native inhabitants of this world. Four arms and three eyes were easy, but the details were the important part. He thought back to the elaborate paintings on the four fingers of every hand he’d ever seen in this place and particularly to how they had looked on the women of this species, to the way the clothes were woven and the hairs were braided, to that slightly scratchy undertone in their voices, as if everyone here was actually partially made of sand. In many ways, sound was trickier than sight. It was so easy to get wrong and so effective when gotten right.

It was just after the last bits of natural light had died off and all the lanterns in the place had been lit, when a familiar sound reached his ears.

 _Hooves. Not Mayhem’s, but a phantom horse alright_. The horseman took a deep breath, got up, and walked over to the door slowly. It was time for some magic.

Strife was not surprised by whom he found on the other side, although he could only assume the feeling was anything but mutual. The captain’s eyes widened inside his helmet and for the shortest of moments, Strife could feel that tinge of forbidden excitement that he supposed Lilith felt whenever someone walked into her sights.

It hadn’t taken a Lilith of course. That was a skin even Strife did not like to wear, although he could certainly admire her talents and use them for his own benefit. Like the knowledge that angels were surprisingly... simple in their desires. He supposed it was natural, what with their society curtailing emotions to such a degree that even mountains full of molten, pressurized rock would look at them and go ‘damn, that’s a lot of repressed energy’, if mountains could look and talk.

He had also learned long ago that most people wanted something, _someone_ , that was familiar enough to match their own standards, but just different enough to pique their interest. It was why what the captain saw in front of him was not a horseman in full armor, armed to the teeth, but a young woman, willowy, with four arms and long, slim fingers ending in nails decorated in intricate designs that screamed Midbar, yet whose hair was not the deep brown, almost black of most of the planet’s inhabitants, but rather a rusty red. A bit of light in the bleak desolation of this planet. Something a little closer to home.

“C-captain...” Had he gotten the accent right? Strife could only assume. He had been listening to the other patrons quite closely, but then again they had all been men, which is how he had gotten the idea in the first place.

What he was sure he had gotten right was the hesitation, the hint of fear. He had been on the receiving end of it often enough to be familiar with that sound forever, and it usually instilled either one of two emotions in people: the frustration of having to get past this awkwardness before any useful dialogue could ensue or the gleeful realization that there was someone to easily take advantage of. He supposed there was a third option—actual empathy—but he wouldn’t know what that felt like and he sure as hell would not need it now.

The four-armed girl bowed her head in a clumsy display of deference and pushed past the captain _just_ close enough to barely touch him. She walked quickly, but with small steps, and did not stop until she found his horse. The stallion huffed at her with an annoyed flick of his tail. Of course the horse could tell that something was up, but then again, he—she—did not need the horse. Not yet anyway. All she needed was a good look, to remember all the details.

“Take care,” the captain spoke with an easy smile as he turned around—the tavern seemingly forgotten in an instant—and approached her. “Phantom horses can be temperamental beasts. He could stomp you flat in a second.”

Two of the girl’s three eyes widened in mild fear. The third blinked ever so slowly. “But you would save me, would you not? He is your horse after all.”

“Of course I would.” The smile widened. It made Strife want to punch him in his ivory teeth right then and there, but he supposed a girl two heads shorter than the captain and half as wide clocking him straight in the face would strain credibility. No, much better to let him continue examining _her_ from head to toe like she was nothing but a piece of meat. “I would even let you ride him.”

 _Yeah, in exchange for letting you ride me_ , Strife thought to himself.

“I would love that”, the girl said to the captain.

The poor angelic idiot swung into the saddle and extended his hand. This was the tricky part. He tried to remember the days when riding a horse than been completely new to him, the clumsiness with which he had first climbed into a saddle. How would someone with four arms even handle that? At least he had had the foresight to remove his gauntlets. Faking one hand to feel like that of another was easier than making adamantine seem like flesh. In the end, he decided to make his first attempt to get on the horse a clumsy, aborted, quickly laughed about mess. It justified the fluidity of the second try.

And then, he was riding across the desert once more. An actual girl might have focused on how the dunes looked like dark waves under the sparkling stars, but Strife’s mind was elsewhere. He took note of the horse, of its pace, of its neighs—or more precisely: the lack thereof—and of how this phantom horse flicked its tail every twenty steps, almost like clockwork.

Eventually, the captain suggested he could show the girl a view she would never forget. The sand parted beneath the horse’s hooves, tearing a hole into the void that was so alien to the girl and so boringly familiar to Strife. Fake excitement was the worst, but he was almost there. In the middle of a dimension of nothing was quite possibly the worst place to let the façade fall, and so the girl squealed in a mixture of delight and mild terror as they rode through the vast nothingness of the space between realms. Thankfully, they emerged only seconds later, just in front of the guards that had pointed their spears and sneers at him earlier that very same day. Of course, to them, the only recognizable things here were the captain and his horse. What they, and every other guard they passed along their way up to the highest levels of the fortress, saw clinging to the captain’s back was a pretty girl from Midbar, timidly marveling at the angelic structure all around her, not a horseman taking note of the position of every guard he’d have to avoid shooting.

The captain banished his horse near the top of the winding stairs and proceeded into a hallway of gleaming white marble, with tall, narrow windows, and a door so large it was obvious someone compensating.

 _Memo to myself_ , Strife thought in slight exasperation, _fake CLUELESSNESS is the worst_.

“Where are we?” The girl girl asked with a shy, but still exhilarated smile on her lips.

“The room with the best view in all of Midbar,” the captain replied as he unlocked the door. Strife suppressed the urge to roll his eyes at the realization that he was using an actual, physical key to do so. Clearly these angels had not had anyone put the fear of death into them for a while.

“I’m sure it is,” the girl replied with a light-hearted giggle as she stepped in behind him. High ceilings, a magical water fountain for ablutions, a ridiculous amount of candles, both wax and crystal, and a bed wide enough to accommodate quite a bit of wing span. So not only was this guy a power-abusing creep, he was also boringly traditional. The girl slithered out of her clothes and smiled one last time at the mix of amusement, anticipation and surprise in the captain’s eyes. There were certainly worse things to feel in the moment of your death. She raised one of her four hands to the back of his neck, and another to his chin to trail it down his throat. “Pity neither one of us will enjoy the view tonight.”

The punch was sharp, precise, and applied with enough force to push his fingers straight through the angel’s skin and flesh. He grabbed the captain’s trachea and pulled it out together with a fair chunk of the blood vessels in his throat, ensuring a quick and silent death. Sometimes, having the more claw-like nails of a demon really did come in handy.

Strife put his gauntlet back on, allowed himself a moment to shake off the image of the girl he had created, and focused on the dead body on the floor once more. It was easier to glamor himself if the template was right in front of him. The wings were going to be the tricky part. He had never had any, and though his more fortunately built brothers and sisters had often explained what it felt like to soar through the sky, flying was not an option. His feathers were going to be purely decorative and he’d be able to call himself lucky if he could get them to move realistically.

Once the glamor was complete, Strife—no, the captain—picked up the blood-splattered key and locked the door behind himself. He doubted anyone would find the corpse before morning.

In comparison to getting into the fortress, finding “His Radiance”—the archangel who was in charge of the angelic presence on Midbar—was easy. After all, angels loved order and hierarchy, and the predictability with which they structured their homes—the higher your station, the higher up you lived—frequently crossed the line from boredom to stupidity. Killing him was even easier, now that Strife didn’t have to pretend to be helpless and unarmed. And of course, for all his illuminated wisdom, the angel did not notice that he was not in fact talking to his loyal captain of the guard until it was far too late.

That left Strife with only one problem: the lock on the cage that currently housed the time well. Strife watched the artifact pulse lazily as it floated inside its gilded, booby-trapped cage next to the arch angel’s bed. Funny that something as simple-looking as that blue funnel in front of him could be used to accelerate, slow or even stop time across an entire battle field. Not so funny that the angels had taken great care to make sure no-one could just carry it out of there, cage and all, without triggering every single alarm in the place.

This was going to take some tinkering.

***

It was almost dawn by the time he managed to disable the last trap. Strife smiled as the last of the silvery ripples around the artifact faded away, leaving him with an ancient relict of the Chronomancers that had long survived its masters. Was it the only one of its kind on this world? He added Midbar to the long list of places to explore for more tools than what the Council deemed the horsemen to need, then secured the time well safely inside the vault of his own gauntlet. Soon, the first of the planet’s three suns would rise again. The bells would sound and chances were good that the angels would be waiting for ‘His Radiance’ to lead the morning hymn. Of course, corpses could not sing.

Shifting back into the disguise of the captain was easy. He closed the door behind himself as he returned to the stairs winding through the fortress and summoned Mayhem.

The poor mare followed her best instincts and prepared to stomp him into the ground with a flurry of angry hooves and whinnies the moment she laid eyes on the angel in front of her.

“Easy, Mayhem, easy! It’s just me!” Using his own voice was risky, though not nearly as much as trying to tame a rampaging phantom horse with nothing but his mind. The confusion was written all over her as she stepped back and forth and shook out her mane, trying to reconcile the familiar voice and mind reaching out to her with what her eyes saw. “Yeah, I know, you hate it when I do this, but it’s really me.”

The first time he tried to reach for the reins, she bit at him. The second time she merely gave a distrusting huff. Strife scratched the familiar spot behind her right ear that tickled her and dropped his voice to a whisper. “I know you’re not gonna like this, girl, but I’m gonna have to remove your armor so I can glamor you too.”

He was right. She didn’t like it. At all. Strife sighed as Mayhem tried to flinch away with every single plate, belt and cloth he took off of her. “I know, girl...” He remembered the early days, how skittish she had been before he started putting armor on her. A neurotic, hyperactive mess for an equally neurotic, hyperactive rider. “But I can’t glamor your clothes the way I can glamor mine.” The head guard came off last, leaving her with nothing but her reins, and the spooked, vibrant gold of her eyes stood out in stark contrast to the muddied gray of her coat. “I don’t like it either,” Strife whispered softly as he patted her neck and swung himself onto her back. “I’ll put all your armor back on as soon as we’re back in the Council’s dominion, I promise.”

Mayhem whinnied once more in displeasure, then hung her head as she resigned herself to her fate. He could feel her discomfort scratching at the back of his mind, like the nagging feeling of having forgotten something hours after the point of no return. He supposed he should have gotten used to the mental bond between a rider and his horse by now, but sometimes it still hit him like a punch to the face.

“Let’s get to work, Mayhem.”

He started with his own glamor, readjusting his voice to the lower pitch of the captain’s dry tone, before focusing his energy on the memories of the captain’s horse. Mayhem paced back and forth as the color drained from her ashen coat and acquired a slight glow that had not been there before. Her mane and tail, formerly a dull brown, came next, lightening until they had the soft hue of a polished pearl, as did the mist trailing after her hooves. Her legs, though technically still the same shape as before, appeared wider now too, stronger and sturdier, as the captain’s own horse’s had been. And of course, anyone who looked at her now would see a stallion, not a mare.

And now, he just needed to get down the winding stairs through an entire fortress filled with angels who would be eager to kill him if his glamor broke. Fantastic.

Strife turned her towards the stairs and nudged her forward gently. One step. Two. Five. Ten. Twenty. _Flick!_ It was a silent command, one that only existed in his mind, and the gentle snort Mayhem gave him spoke of her dislike for putting up with even more of this charade, but she obliged nonetheless. Her tail whipped through the air with enough annoyance to make a sound and Strife frowned. _Less force, more posture. You can vent your frustration when we’re out of here_. One step. Two. Five. Ten. Twenty. _Flick!_ Mayhem obliged. The third time he did not even have to ask. Strife grinned and gave her ear a good scratch. _Good girl._

They were halfway down the stair case when the first guards landed near them. Granted, he had already seen them circling above like overgrown, bleached vultures, but he had hoped to avoid any actual contact until he reached the gates. Of course, luck was not on his side again. He suppressed both the frown as the guards approached him and the panic-induced flinch as they greeted him in high angelic. He had had a hard enough time learning standard angelic, and even then one of his earliest lessons had been that angelic greetings were fraught with difficulty. From what he understood, there were at least twenty-two different words for ‘hello’ in standard angelic, depending on the social status of the speaker and the addressee. And high angelic? He was not even going to try. And so Strife—the captain—merely nodded in return and continued on his trek down the stairs. And to think he had originally thought making the wings he did not actually have on his back appear to bob with Mayhem’s steps would be the hardest part!

Far across the desert, the first sun was halfway above the horizon. A bell rang out, heralding the beginning of a new day. Mayhem neighed at the sensation of raw sunlight on her chest and Strife shushed her gently. This, more than anything else perhaps, was going to make or break _her_ disguise. Strife was a chatterbox. Mayhem was a chatterbox. The captain’s horse? Absolutely not. Of course, it did not help that ever more angels kept appearing from the hallways. He could only understand bits and pieces of the conversations, but it was enough to understand the gist.

_Where is His Radiance? Why is He not leading the morning prayer?_

Strife bit back the sarcastic answer that wanted to weasel its way out of his throat and continued on his trek. At last the outer wall of the fortress and its main gate appeared in front of him. Just another forty paces and he would finally be able to ditch this glamor. More importantly, he’d finally be able to ditch _Mayhem’s_ glamor. He could all but feel the misery radiating from her. Strife pulled the reins gently as she approached the gate and racked his brain for the right words in the angelic language.

“Open the gate.”

The guards in front of him blinked in confusion. Damn, had his accent really been this bad?

“But the morning hymn has not yet been sung.”

Strife wanted to roll his eyes. Angels and their superstitions! God forbid any of them ventured forth beyond the safety of their fortress without invoking the Creator’s protection first! He swallowed the first set of words that wanted to spill from his mouth and was just about to tell them in no uncertain tone that he could join the prayer just as well from outside the gates as from within, when the bells sounded again.

This time, it was not the slow gong that called for an assembly. This time, it was the frantic, shrill sound of an alarm. In the confused second that it took both guards to understand what was happening, Strife drew his sabers and pushed one straight into the face of each guard. He vaulted off the saddle, threw both levers, retrieved his sabers, and got back on his horse. From above and behind him, angry shouts and the sound of a war horn joined the bells.

“Ready, Mayhem?”

The mare huffed in response, stomping at the ground with unbridled impatience. The first shot missed her by just an inch, scorching both his scarf and the opening doors in front of them. Strife steered her a little to the left, out of the path of a second shot, then spurred her onwards as soon as the gate had opened just far enough. With less than a finger’s width to spare on either side, Mayhem, galloped forward, through the doorway, the mist at her feet once more regaining its natural purple color as the rift opened up for them just outside the walls and the familiar nothingness of the void swallowed them. Strife smiled.

_Mission accomplished._


	3. Hills To Die On

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> War's first reaction towards finding a pale phantom horse approaching him out of the blue in the middle of a battle field is one of annoyance. That is until he realizes she is not just any phantom mare--she is his brother's horse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Darksiders Week, fam!   
> This chapter was written for the first day of Darksiders Week 2020, a mini fandom event on tumblr. Day 1 is all about gen relationships in Darksiders, so please have some War & Strife angst with sprinkles of fluff. Enjoy!
> 
> Disclaimer: This work was written for publication on Archive of Our Own and my personal Tumblr and is not for profit. Any re-publication on for-profit/monetized sites/apps is not authorized or supported by me. If you come across such a re-publication, please leave a comment in my tumblr ask box. Podfics and translations may be authorized upon request.

Chaoseater sang with the joy of battle. War doubted the demons foolishy throwing themselves in his way could perceive its cries, but War _felt_ them, in his bones and in his soul, a deep, ancient rhythm echoing through him with every strike.

It was a song of the glory of battle. A song worthy of a nephilim, worthy of a Horseman.

War turned and twisted out of the way of an oncoming axe and used the momentum to swing his own blade straight against the assailant's torso. Chaoseater cleaved him in half with a sharp gasp of joy that was only marred by the sight the splitting torso revealed.

 _It followed me here_ , War thought with a suspicion bordering on uneasiness as he deflected another blow and caved in a demon's face with his metal fist. It was unsual behavior for most animals in the universe to follow around someone they did not know, but especially for ones commonly trained for battle and for obedience towards their owner.

And especially for phantom horses.

War grunted as the rest of the horde finally realized that attacking him all at once might provide a better chance at defeating him than approaching him single file. Unfortunately, that realization came far too late and even if it had not: he was a Horseman. Truly, the incredible hubris his foes frequently showed in the presence of an enforcer of the Council never ceased to surprise him.

War raised Chaoseater high, channeled the wrath inside of him, and drove the blade into the ground hard. It spawned six new blades in a circle around him, skewering the first row of demons and leaving the second wide open for a full spin with his sword. The last few pitiful reserves looked at each other as if they were finally starting to doubt their choices and wondering whether to retreat or not.

War took the decision from them by separating their heads from their shoulders. Then he took a deep breath, sheathed Chaoseater, and surveyed the surrounding battlefield.

The Council had tasked him with slaughtering every single demon in this realm and the one he had visited before, while causing as little structural damage as possible—an annoying stipulation to be sure, but War felt confident he had done a decent job. Mostly.

He frowned at the sight of the lighthouse, now nothing but a pile of blazing rubble coated in ash and demon blood.

Where was Strife when he needed him? This kind of assignment would have been much better suited for him.

 _There_ _is_ _no point in questioning the Council_ , War reminded himself. _If they thought it should be my mission, then my mission it will be_.

Naturally, none of that answered the question of what a phantom horse, of all creatures in the universe, was doing trailing in his wake. _And a fearless one at that,_ the Red Rider noted as he turned around, only to find the horse already appraoaching him, stepping almost gingerly over and in between the carnage he had wrought.

"You don't look like you have a rider." War looked the horse over quickly. It was white as milk, a pale shade not quite as harsh as snow, but with a certain sheen to it that hinted at the horse's ethereal nature. It looked to be solid and liquid at once. Its eyes were the same pale gold as those of every single phantom horse War had seen in the Far Fields, back when he had tamed Ruin. About the only thing he could say for sure about this creature was that it was a mare, not a stallion. "You are far from home, lost one."

The horse took a step back and War's eyes narrowed. Granted, his understanding of horses had been mostly limited to the uses of cavalry in battle when he had first come into this world, but after thousands of years with Ruin, he knew enough to know that that was not a thing horses usually did.

The mare shook her head and neighed, almost as if she was insulted by his words and closed the distance between them. War curled his fingers around the hilt of Chaoseater and the sword trembled in anticipation. He was not going to die here, after nearly completing his mission, under the hooves of a lost phantom horse.

The mare seemed to peer straight through him and just for a moment War could feel it, the place in her mind that would be reserved for a bond between horse and rider. There was little room left in there, but she seemed to use it almost deliberately. The sudden surge of exasperation coming from her was all it took to stay his hand long enough for her head to dart forward. Her teeth clasped onto the edge of his hood and pulled sharply.

War, almost on instinct, threw his fist in the general direction of his cheating opponent, only to hit cold, vibrating air where the horse had faded into the ether. She re-appeared on his right, amidst more corpses, made a sharp turn, and neighed at him once more. War pushed his hood back into place and indulged an annoyed sigh.

"I am not your rider, you little ingrate. What do you want from me?"

Up until this point, War had not known that horses could huff. But she did. The gesture was almost painfully familiar, right down to the way the mare stomped one of her front hooves. But where? Where had he seen that before?

The horse turned to leave, took a few steps, then turned back to him, fixating him with a stare that could have worn a hole in steel. When he didn't move, she walked over to him again. This time, she nabbed the edge of his cloak and started pulling.

"You want me to follow you." It was a statement, not a question. War had no doubt in his mind that that's what the poor beast was trying to communicate and the delightful little whinny she gave in return seemed to prove him right. "I can't." War paused, then added: "I have a duty to fulfill. Demons to slay. I don't have time for you."

War started walking. He had to search the rest of this outpost, make sure that he had truly managed to kill all the demons before moving on to the next location. The angelic compass the Council had given to him hummed quietly as it re-calibrated itself to find the nearest source of demonic energy.

And of course, just as it had done the last two-hundred and something times, the first living creature it honed in on was War himself.

"Blasted device!" Any other object made of glass may have shattered from the force of impact of War's throw. Unfortunately, the angelic talisman was a true marvel of heavenly engineering. It merely wailed in disappointment as it tumbled through the debris. It was a feeling born of spite, but that hardly changed the fact that War wanted nothing more than to call Ruin and search the realm step by step, mile by mile, grid by grid until his task was done. He could return to the Council claiming the artifact had been lost or shattered in battle. There was no need to mention that the battle had been between him and the compass.

The white mare trotted over to the trinket, kicked the rubble it had landed under out of the way, and gave the artifact a soft nudge.

To War's horror, she wrenched the compass between her teeth and disappeared back into the void.

Well, now he did not even have to lie about having lost it.

"Ruin!"

His own steed emerged from the rubble in a blaze of fire and ash. Where the smaller mare had stepped carefully, Ruin with his massive body merely stomped harder, crushing skulls and caving in armor as he approached the spot where the mare had vanished. There was confusion in his mind, mixed with both concern and dread.

"A friend of yours?"

War doubted it. Ruin had been removed from the herd of the Far Fields a long time ago and its closest equine companions since had been the horses of War's brothers and sister. And those War would definitely have recognized.

Ruin did not answer and War did not blame him. He could _feel_ that he did not have the answer.

In any case, it was time to switch to the alternative plan. War swung into the saddle and set about leading Ruin through the field of corpses. The only thing moving were the crows coming in to pick at the cadavers and that was a good sign. Now he just had to figure out which parts of the realm might still have demons hiding in it and—

The ground to his right opened up once more and War knew why before he even looked. This horse had not stopped following him when he had switched planets. Of course she was still here.

 _Barely_. The thought sent a shiver down his spine. War's brow furrowed in concern as he finally looked to his right and saw her all but drag herself through the battle field. Her white fur seemed to have lost its luster and her head hung low, heavy breaths pushing past the compass in her mouth. She approached him with wobbly steps and pushed the compass back into his hand with a despair that screamed 'take it before I drop it in exhaustion'.

"What happened to you?" It was rare that War worried for any creature that had annoyed him so much, but he could not help feeling sorry for the poor beast. She looked like she was ready to drop dead. "Where is your rider?"

To War's utter confusion and amazement the mare nudged Ruin—and he let her. She trotted off once more, practically crawling back into the void.

In a perfect display of rider-and-horse-compatibility, War and Ruin had the same thought at the same time: _we should follow her_.

A short ride through nothingness later, War emerged in the middle of a demonic war camp. The sentries barely had time to blink as Ruin caved in their skulls with precisely-aimed kicks. The mare was nowhere to be seen, which hopefully meant that she had escaped this place. He did not fancy finding a butchered horse on a demon's campfire today.

With a fearsome cry, War and Ruin charged straight into the nearest cluster of enemies. Chaoseater sang again.

***

The sun was close to setting by the time War finished his duty. The last demon died with a wretched gurgling noise as War dislodged Chaoseater from his throat. War sheathed the sword and retrieved the compass. It spun aimlessly for a few seconds, before the needle pointed to him once more, but where it had at least been quivering in hesitation before, now it rested dead as a stone.

If his experience from the last realm was anything to go by, that meant his task was done. He truly was the last at least partially demonic creature left on this planet.

War mounted his horse once more and started his usual examination of the field. "Keep an eye out for our pale shadow as well," War muttered through clenched teeth as the stench of burning bones reached his nose. At least this time no existing structures had been involved. Surely the Council would not care about a couple of razed demon tents.

He found her at the edge of the battlefield, laying down in sheer exhaustion and breathing heavily. The mare shook her head as he approached, clambering onto her unsteady feet. Nonetheless, there was a fire in her eyes. If she could speak his language, surely she would have snapped 'can we go now?' at him.

"I need to report to the Council—"

It was as if a switch had been flicked. As if the horse had been hit by an arrow coated with corruptive poison. Even though she barely looked like she had the strength to stand up, she started pacing, kicking at demonic corpses and weaponry alike in what War could only describe as redirected frustration.

Underneath his own annoyance, a tiny spark of genuine uneasiness took hold.

What exactly was so important to this horse that she ignored her body's own exhaustion to display such aggression? And why would she not just go and find someone easier to convince?

Ruin neighed in concern and reared up gently, before approaching the mare and nuzzling her neck. It seemed to calm her down a little, although War could still see her tremble, whether from fatigue or from rage. Perhaps he really should investigate. Ruin did not take this kindly to strangers. Clearly he knew this mare from somewhere, even if War's brain had deemed the memory unworthy of prolonged existence.

"Alright then," War surveyed the field one last time. A feast for the crows. His job was done. "Show me what it is that is so important."

The mare disappeared into the void in an instant. Ruin followed. War, for all that he trusted Ruin with his life, clenched his teeth as he let his steed carry him Creator knew where. What would await him there? An ambush? Another battlefield? A world on the brink of collapse?

The answer turned out to be 'snow'. Mountains of it. Ruin neighed in disgust as the frozen water melted against his legs, no match for the fires burning inside the stallion. The mare was ahead of them, trotting carefully amidst the trees with a much lighter gait. Now that there was no dust or smoke around, War could see the barest hint of puffy mist trailing after her hooves. It looked familiar, but not familiar enough.

At least not until they cleared the forest.

Ruin froze and so did War.

Set into the mountain that surveyed the valley to its feet and the black and silver shore in the distance was an old angelic outpost that had seen much better days. The outside—once shining white—was burned mottled grey and black, the banners little more than torn rags with faded colors. Two of its towers had collapsed and several of the walls had taken recent damage. Judging from the myriad of demonic corpses littering the slopes around it, one might have thought that all damage was recent.

War knew better.

He knew that the fire that had scorched the walls had been extinguished millennia ago. He knew that the banners had hung like that for just as long. He also knew that the entire place was usually protected by powerful magic.

War knew because the first time he had come here, he had had to dodge half a dozen magical traps, and he would have needed to dodge half a dozen more, had Strife not bothered to come and see who was knocking on his door.

"Strife..."

The mare neighed softly. She sounded tired, but even so there was just a hint of cheekiness to the sound that hit War with a sudden, frightening familiarity. "Mayhem?"

The mare nodded and headed for the fortress with wobbly steps that tied War's stomach in knots.

It was true that Strife was called 'the rider of the white horse', but it had been a misnomer since the beginning. Mayhem was supposed to be gray. The mist at her feet was supposed to be a dark purple. She was supposed to be covered in armor. She was supposed to be energetic, almost frantic, and far more annoying than this.

 _What in all of Creation happened to you, brother?_ War thought as he dismounted and led Ruin next to Mayhem, before setting out on a brisk walk towards the fortress. The fact that he was quicker on his two feet than Mayhem on her four was beyond worrying.

As he approached the gates of the fort, the evidence of battle finally formed a clearer picture in his head. Every single one of the demons had been shot, and sloppily at that. War frowned. It was unlike Strife to waste that many bullets when on the defense. He could hazard a decent guess on which window had been Strife's perch, judging from where the aggressors had fallen and in which direction. However, what was truly worrying was the broken front gate.

Someone or something had made it through.

War drew Chaoseater, kicked in what remained of the gate, and set about securing the inside of the fortress.

As angelic fortresses went, this one was almost boringly traditional. War worked his way through the layers of circular corridors, one floor at a time, taking note of any and all signs of disturbance. Dirty, wet footsteps soon became splashes of blood and eventually carefully sliced up corpses the higher he ascended. Their injuries told War everything he needed to know—whatever had happened to Strife, he had been sharp-minded enough to aim for vital spots, but exhausted enough to get sloppy.

The trail finally ended on the eight floor, in a puddle of blood, the corpses of six demons, and the body of a nephilim, hand still curled around the hilt of the saber he had put through his last attacker.

"Strife!" This could not be happening. War felt his blood cool as the memories came back unbidden. Back then, it had been a field of corpses. A field as wide as an entire realm. A garden irrigated with blood. "Strife!"

He struggled out of the gauntlet on his right hand and felt for a pulse that he could only hope was still there. If his brother had really died in what was a comparatively meager demonic assault on an angelic fortress, War would have to drag his soul back into the world of the living so he could split his head open himself.

Underneath War's index finger, the arteries in Strife's neck throbbed softly. Relief was an emotion that War rarely had the luxury of feeling, but he indulged it nonetheless. Especially since it only lasted about as long as his cursory examination of his brother's injuries took.

There were none. Not a single dent to his armor. Not a single cut to his skin. Not a single puncture wound. No sign of a single hit. Instead, as far as War could judge, it seemed as if all energy had been leeched from his brother, to the point of exhaustion and beyond.

On one hand, that meant he likely did not have to worry about the immediate risk of Strife dying from any specific wound. On the other, it also meant War had no idea how to fix this situation. Wounds were easy. He had healing shards a-plenty. But this?

War sighed and set about securing the remainder of the fortress. Strife was not going anywhere and he was not likely to get worse. For now, the best War could do for his brother was to ensure that there were no more aggressors in his home.

He started by finishing his rounds through the corridors of the remaining two levels of the fortress, making sure to check the many, many side chambers for any hidden foes. Most of the doors he opened led to blackened dormitories, covered in soot and the scars of millennia, with very little trace of who—if anyone—had lived here before.

And then there was the top floor. War opened the door to the first of the five rooms and wondered briefly if he had somehow stepped through an invisible portal and come out in a completely different angelic fortress on the other side of the galaxy.

The architecture matched, but everything else might has well have belonged to a different world. If there had ever been a trace of soot or ash in this room, it was gone now. If there had ever been a single spider hiding in its corners, it had been squashed ages ago. And though the furniture was fundamentally angelic in its approach of simple shapes with elaborate golden decorations, the abundance of wine red, almost black drapings—be they curtains or sheets—that adorned every surface looked far too dark to welcome any angel. They looked far too neat to be to Strife's liking either, but it wasn't until War stepped into the center of the room and was hit by the subtle, but unmistakable aroma of dusk orchids that he realized why it looked familiar.

Fury's travel tent looked, and smelled, like this.

Had she actually been here? War doubted it. They had made their homes on separate worlds—a decision encouraged by the Council—and Fury had never been the most sociable person to begin with. Try as he might, War could not imagine any scenario in which she would willingly have stayed in Strife's home long enough to need sleep, which could only mean one thing: Strife had prepared, and maintained, this room for her. Just in case.

War felt the tiniest pinch of a smile tug at his lips. Strife's imagination truly was exhausting.

Finding the next room to be just as sparsely decorated, but draped in much lighter, more saturated shades of red hardly came as a surprise. Of the mere handful of furniture items, one stood out in particular—a shelf full of old and worn books and scrolls, many of which he recognized upon short inspections. The Treaties of Asimfos. The Battle Chronicles of Mahwe. Archon Hestus' Military Strategies and Tactics. Reluctantly, War had to give credit where credit was due—if he'd have to spend the night here, he would not object.

The third room was so unmistakably Strife's, it could only have been more obvious had he actually written his name on the walls. Then again, maybe he had. It was hard to tell, what with the way the room was covered in trinkets and knickknacks of origins War could only guess. Some seemed angelic, some demonic. Some, quite a few actually, to War's quiet unsettlement, had the distinct aesthetic of human craftsmanship. For his brother's sake, War hoped that they had not actually been taken from Earth, but merely been commissioned by his brother as imitations of things he had taken an interest in during his missions on Earth.

War frowned as he pushed a veritable pile of souvenirs off of Strife's bed. Under any other circumstance he might have been worried about actually breaking something by sending it onto the floor, but considering the stone beneath his feet was cushioned with nearly as many different pouches, cloaks, scarves and other textiles War could only guess the names off, he doubted he was going to do much damage. How Strife could feel comfortable in this mess was anyone's guess and not for War to worry about tonight. All he had to worry about was making room for one unconscious brother and his own bulky frame. Once War felt comfortable that he had finally cleared enough space without breaking anything, he moved on to the next room.

True to his chaotic spirit, Strife did indeed manage to surprise him. War had expected a bed or a cot at least. Instead, what he found was a workbench, almost as long as the room was wide, covered in various casings and shells that were unmistakably sized to fit into Mercy and Redemption. Some were empty, some were filled with glowing substances that War could neither identify nor wished to examine first hand. The wall to the left was lined with shelves stacked to the brim with various arcane substances, only a third of which War could identify at first glance. The other was lined with triple-locked chests, some of which smelled distinctly of gun powder. For all the unruly chaos Strife's bedroom had exuded, this... laboratory, if War guessed its purpose correctly, was the exact opposite—neat, clean, well-organized. War could almost have given him credit for proper planning, had it not been for the fact that both rooms were right next to each other.

War retreated, closed the door behind himself and proceeded to the final room.

"Ah."

What more could he say? Now the placement made sense. A blank, hard cot that looked like it had been made from bones and sinew, a weapon rack for the scythes, a bird perch with a water bowl by the window, and literally nothing else. This was definitely a room for Death and Dust. And placing dozens of boxes of explosives between himself and his oldest brother was certainly a very... Strife-like decision.

War sighed in exasperation and returned to the eighth floor. For all the armor he was wearing, Strife weighed next to nothing. War slung his brother over his shoulder, carried him upstairs, and laid him down on the bed, before returning for the demons. As much as he wanted to leave the clean-up entirely to Strife, who was likely responsible for getting into this mess in the first place, he had walked too many battlefields where the clustered souls of the vanquished merged into unholy monstrosities to simply ignore the corpses. He grabbed them by either a wrist or an ankle—whichever one Strife had not cut off with his sabers—and dragged them back to the main gate and out into the snow. Apparently a storm was coming and War frowned at the heavy flurry of snowflakes that greeted him.

 _At least_ , he thought as he started piling up the bodies, _magical fire can forego wood_.

***

By the time his brother finally woke up, the flurry had become a wall of ice, thick enough to block out even most of the lightning in the distance. Every once in a while it would break just enough to give him a few of the massive water spouts moving across the black waves in the distance. It reminded him of the first time he had visited Strife's home, and of how his brother had laughed off War's concerns about the frequent and violent storms on this world potentially damaging the fortress.

_"This place is protected by, like... six layers of angelic magic. Trust me—ain't no storm gonna put a scratch on this baby."_

War grimaced and focused on his book once more. He could only hope that the magical wards fending off intruders were spearate from those keeping out the weather.

"War?"

He placed the ribbon neatly against the page and shut the book with a thud loud enough to make his brother flinch. "I was starting to wonder if you were going to wake up at all."

"That bad, huh?" Whatever it was that had wrecked his brother, it must not have worn off completely yet. Strife winced as he propped himself up into one of his trademark tangles of long limbs, half sitting half leaning, and started testing each joint in his hands and arms for damage. He also sounded just as tired as he looked. "Gotta _love_ your timing though—centuries without a visit and then you get here on the one day that I look and feel like shit."

"It's been three days, actually." War glared at him, offended. "And don't flatter yourself—if it hadn't been for Mayhem, I would not have come here at all."

"Mayhem?" Suddenly, Strife's voice was awake with alarm. "What happened to Mayhem? Is she alright?"

As usual, his brother acted on sheer impulse. War sighed as he watched him try to clamber to his feet only to stumble and stretched out his left arm with the same speed that always surprised his foes, just in time to catch bis brother before his face could meet the floor. A quick push was all it took to put him back on the bed.

"At ease, brother. She was alive when I got here. Weak and pale, but alive. I am certain now that you are feeling better, she is too."

"Yeah, well..." Strife took a deep breath and though he tried to hide it, War could see his face distort briefly in pain. "Better don't mean good. If she's feeling half as crap as I do, she should probably not be alone out there."

"I left Ruin with her," War explained. "She'll be fine."

"Oh." Strife nodded, sighed, and laid back down. That alone was concerning enough. He was never so easily deterred from anything.

"What happened to you, Strife?"

"None of your business. I'll be fine."

" _Your_ horse all but dragged me here, while I was on a mission from the Council. Which I have yet to complete since this place was littered with dead demons when I got here and you were barely alive. How is--"

"A mission from the Council?!" Suddenly, Strife was as awake and alert as War had ever seen him. There was a wild look to his eyes, erratic and focused at the same time. If War had not known better, he would have called it 'panicked'. "Shit, War, nevermind me, go finish that mission! NOW! I'll be fine."

War's eyes narrowed. "You worry what punishment they will inflict on me for abandoning my task, even temporarily."

"I sure do," Strife huffed. "They ain't exactly the forgiving type and you know it!"

"Your current predicament is not the work of any demon or angel, is it?" For a moment, the room was silent except for the howling of the storm outside. It was only a brief pause, but it was enough to confirm that he had hit his mark. "Did the Council do this to you?"

"Did they send a small army of demons to my house? No, of course not."

"That is not what I meant, brother, and you know it."

"War, I appreciate your help, but I think you should leave now."

This time, what Strife's movements had lost in terms of urgency, they had gained in pure forcefulness. War frowned as he watched him get up and make for the door. War put the book on the bed, followed him, and slammed the door shut just as Strife had opened it.

"You are evading my question, Strife."

"And you are evading getting out of here without my fist landing in your face."

War wanted to laugh. "I could beat you in a sheer test of strength even on your best day, but you are welcome to try. I will gladly postpone my report to the Council until you regain your senses."

"You gotta be--" Strife sighed, sat back down on the bed, and ran his hands through his hair. That, too, told War more than enough about the severity of the situation. Normally, Strife would have jumped at the opportunity to get into a scuffle. "Please... Just go, bro. I'll explain later."

"No." War leaned against the door and crossed his arms in front of his chest. "You won't. We both know that. Tell me what happened to you and I will leave."

Long, overly dramatical sighs were nothing unusual for Strife. Even so, the one he gave in response was impressive. For a second, he looked almost lost. "Promise you won't tell Death?"

Now _that_ was worrisome. The animosity between Strife and Death was well known to anyone within the family and without—and had been for as long as War could remember. He had never cared how exactly they had come to hate each other so, nor had he cared to ask. Even so, it was rare for Strife to actively seek to avoid Death's criticism. After all, he, more than anyone else in the family, thrived on conflict.

"That will depend on what you will tell me."

"Of course it will." The sound that escaped Strife's throat was halfway between a bitter laugh and an angry hiss. "Get bent then. Creator forbid Death's opinion ever be worth less than someone else's."

"Is that what you think I care about?" Now it was War's turn to be angry. He could feel the rage welling up inside him, and the happy hum of Chaoseater as it sensed the potential for blood. "That I would take what you tell me to him for some kind of childish approval?"

"I think," Strife said with a clarity sharp as his daggers, "that I have heard enough lectures from him about my lack of professionalism and how I'm the black sheep of the family and how I have no-one but myself to blame for my misery to last me a thousand fucking lifetimes. I also think you should go finish that mission of yours."

"Strife..." Reining in his anger was never easy. War grimaced as he pushed the bitterness back down and shut out the bloodthirsting hum of his sword. "I once told the Council, to their faces, that they would have to kill me, if they chose to kill Death for his disobedience. Do not think I would not do the same for you." The quick look of disbelief and something that resembled hope that Strife gave him was all the confirmation he needed. "What happened to you, brother? What did the Council do to you?"

Strife sighed. "They sent me on a mission to Earth. To track down a changeling demon that had established a cult for himself, and kill him and any of his lackeys. Prevent him from interfering with humanity's evolution. They wanted it done discreet and quiet, minimal bloodshed."

"A mission well-suited for someone with a powerful glamor," War mused. "I see why they sent you. What went wrong?"

Strife raised an eyebrow. He looked almost happy for a split second, and War wondered if maybe that was part of the reason why he never got along with Death. Strife thrived on positive affirmations, on praise. Death... did not usually bother to give his opinion unless it was to criticize. The highest compliment one could hope for from him was silence. Still, what he needed from Strife was not joy. It was an answer.

"What went wrong, Strife?"

"With the mission? Nothing." His brother shrugged. "Found the bastard. Killed him and his followers. Humans actually have guns now, so that made it a whole lot easier to hide my tracks. Went back to the Council. Reported mission accomplished."

"And then what?" Strife grimaced, but remained silent. War frowned. He was getting more than tired of having to repeat himself. "And then what, Strife?"

"And then it turns out they had a watcher posted nearby the entire time, because apparently I have a history of 'deliberately misinterpreting instructions', which, for the record, is bullshit. I don't 'misinterpret'. I follow to the letter. It's not my fault they always withhold half the information we could use and give us only the briefest and most ambiguous instructions."

Strife sighed. "My exact instructions from the Council were, and I quote: 'Find the changeling. Kill him and all who could spread his knowledge. No more, no less.' For the record, the charismatic bastard had wrapped half the village around his finger."

"But you did not kill half the village."

"Humans aren't like us, War. The Creator didn't put them in the universe fully formed with a brain full of knowledge, able to walk, talk and fend for themselves from day one. They can't do either of those things when they are born and they don't learn to do them until years later. Hell, I've yet to meet a single human who remembered anything that happened in the first five years of their lives with any sort of clarity."

 _Oh brother..._ War... could not blame him. The culling of entire populations was never an easy task. War himself would gladly slay a million warriors on a battlefield, but to end the lives of the defenseless, especially of children... it was a burden that had thankfully rarely been put on his shoulders. "You let the children live."

"The ones too young to form a single sentence beyond 'wake up, mommy' anyways." Strife nodded. "They couldn't 'spread his knowledge' even if they tried. If the Council wants their blood on their hands, they can send someone else. Well..." He took a deep breath. "Technically they did. After they were done lecturing me, they told me that the watcher had finished my job for me, and I should be punished for my insolence. Don't know exactly what they did to me or how, but it felt like someone had drained half my blood and replaced it with acid. Could barely walk by the time they finally dismissed me. I came back here, was about to go to get some rest..." He gestured vaguely at the window. "And then this demon attack happened. Great timing, huh?"

"Indeed."

It was only one word, but War could tell it had conveyed all its necessary meaning by the way Strife nodded at him. The Council had eyes and ears everywhere. It had taken centuries, millennia even, for him and Strife to find a workable middle ground between the safety of War's silence and Strife's almost suicidal tendency to voice his honest opinion, unpolished, unfettered, whenever he felt like it, but they had done it.

"I'm not surprised, to be honest." Strife scoffed. "I expected something like this to happen sooner or later."

"Is that why the rest of the rooms on this floor are in such good condition, even though you are usually so comfortable living in..." War gestured vaguely at the chaos in front of him. "... this?"

Strife laughed and though it obviously caused him at least some pain, War was glad to see him somewhat approaching his usual energy levels once more. "Yeah... although I was pretty damn sure all of you would rather be caught dead than to come licking your wounds at my place. But, hey, like you always say—my imagination is exhausting."

"Not nearly as much as your audacity," War shot back at him. He nodded towards the book on the bed. _The Art of War_. The last of three books War had read during his time here in the fortress that looked suspiciously human from start to finish. "Does the Council know you keep souvenirs from your visits to Earth?"

"No more than they know that you read them."

War sighed and turned to leave. Sometimes, quite often actually, he truly did want to punch his brother in that smug, idiot grin of his. "I will leave you to your collection, then. I have a report to make."

"You absolutely do. And War..." He cast a glance back over his shoulder to find Strife looking almost speechless for once. "Thank you. For coming here."

As if there had ever been any chance that he wouldn't have! War wanted to shake his head and call his brother a fool. Had he not already promised to follow him into Oblivion long ago, during their second visit to Eden?

"Thank your horse. She all but dragged me here."


End file.
